What is the value of non-roll call position taking in Congress? The authors argue that non-roll call positions are used by interest groups to acquire information about the direction and intensity of legislators' preferences. Legislators, in turn, use them to attract campaign contributions from potential donors. Examining bill sponsorship in the 103rd and 104th Congresses, the authors find a relationship between campaign contributions from labor and gun control political action committees and the positions House Democrats take through bill sponsorship. These results suggest that non-roll call position taking indeed matters.

This article examines Black and Latino legislators' use of bill sponsorship and cosponsorship in Congress. As we explain, sponsoring and cosponsoring legislation are unique in that they are among the few activities outside the roll call arena that have both position taking and policy implications. We hypothesize that given minority legislators' lack of influence in Congress, they sponsor and cosponsor fewer bills than do nonminorities. We find support for our expectation; on average, Black and Latino legislators sponsor and cosponsor significantly fewer bills in Congress than do Whites and non-Latinos, respectively. But we also find the relationship to be contingent on which party controls Congress. Whereas Democratic Congresses encourage minorities' bill sponsorship and cosponsorship, Republican Congresses depress it. Because the concepts of participation and representation in Congress are so intimately tied to one another, these findings have a number of implications for the study of descriptive and substantive representation.

Most analyses of position taking in Congress focus on roll-call voting, where members of Congress (MCs) regularly cast votes, thereby regularly taking positions. Left largely unstudied has been position taking beyond the domain of rollcall voting. However, analyzing non-roll-call position taking raises interesting theoretical questions. Whereas most members cannot avoid taking positions (casting votes) on roll calls, outside the roll-call arena MCs have more discretion; they must decide whether or not to take a position at all. And, while roll-call voting is directly tied to policy consequences, the connection is weaker in non-roll-call position taking. These two distinguishing features of non-roll-call position taking motivate a variety of hypotheses about who takes positions and what positions they take. Our results reveal strong constituency links to both phenomena. The results also imply that party influence is greater on roll-call position taking. We interpret these findings in the context of leading theories of congressional behavior.

To date, most empirical analyses of position taking in Congress have focused on roll call voting, where members of Congress (MCs) regularly cast votes, thereby regularly taking positions. Left largely unstudied has been position taking outside the domain of roll call voting. This article takes a closer look at who utilizes one popular non-roll call forum in the House of Representatives-nonlegislative debate (NLD)-and why. The analysis expands on extant research by examining multiple Congresses (101st to 106th), both types of NLD (1-minute speeches and special-order addresses), and determinants not explicitly accounted for in previous research. Among other things, I argue that institutional variation across the NLD forums leads to important differences in participation. The results show that more individualistic, institutionally disadvantaged MCs tend to favor 1-minute speeches, whereas those in the parties' mainstream frequent the special-order period.

Objectives: To determine factors predictive of postoperative surgical site infection (SSI) after fracture fixation and create a prediction score for risk of infection at time of initial treatment. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: Level I trauma center. Patients/Participants: Study group, 311 patients with deep SSI; control group, 608 patients. Intervention: We evaluated 27 factors theorized to be associated with postoperative infection. Bivariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were used to build a prediction model. A composite score reflecting risk of SSI was then created. Main Outcome Measures: Risk of postoperative infection. Results: The final model consisted of 8 independent predictors: (1) male sex, (2) obesity (body mass index ≥ 30) (3) diabetes, (4) alcohol abuse, (5) fracture region, (6) Gustilo–Anderson type III open fracture, (7) methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus nasal swab testing (not tested or positive result), and (8) American Society of Anesthesiologists classification. Risk strata were well correlated with observed proportion of SSI and resulted in a percent risk of infection of 1% for ≤3 points, 6% for 4–5 points, 11% for 6 to 8–9 points, and 41% for ≥10 points. Conclusion: The proposed postoperative infection prediction model might be able to determine which patients have fractures at higher risk of infection and provides an estimate of the percent risk of infection before fixation. Level of Evidence: Prognostic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.